


Same Old Meg

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesiac!Meg, Canon Divergence AU, F/M, Fluff, Meg Lives, Megstiel - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:34:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5532734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Crowley killed her, Castiel brought Meg back... without any of her memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Same Old Meg

“I’m sorry, no. I can’t remember any of you.”

In any other circumstances, they would have doubted her words on principle. Demons lied, after all, and Meg had never been shy about pretending to be something she wasn’t to get away with hers.

But sitting there in bunker’s kitchen, with dried blood still on her clothes and hair, her trembling hands around a steaming mug of coffee, she looked so tiny, so scared and so… sincere. Since she’d come back, her eyes hadn’t gone black even once (Sam had been watching closely), and they’d had to repeat their names and _her_ name to her several times before they stuck.

So Sam was inclined to believe her. Dean, not so much.

“Really? You don’t remember _anything_?” he asked, crossing his arms and staring at her, skeptical. “Hell? Crowley? Lucifer?”

“I have no idea… is that supposed to be code for something?” Meg asked. She frowned, like she was trying really hard to make sense out of Dean’s words, only to shake her head in the end. “Sorry. I really don’t… I’m just really tired,” she concluded, with a sigh. “Maybe after I’ve slept…”

“You’re a demon!” Dean snapped. “You don’t need to sleep!”

“Oh,” Meg muttered, like Dean’s words were complete news to her. She took the mug to her lips and emptied it in a gulp. She looked even more wide-eye and scared than before.

“Could you excuse us for a second?” Sam asked, grabbing Dean by the arm and dragging him to a corner of the kitchen where they could whisper without her hearing them. “What exactly are you trying to do?”

“Snap her out of it,” Dean replied, simply. “Come on, you’re not really buying this whole amnesiac thing, are you?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “I mean… there’s never been a demon coming back to life before. Not that we know of,” he clarified when Dean opened his mouth to protest. “Who knows what the hell it did to her?”

Dean shot him a glare of annoyance and rubbed his temples.

“Cas shouldn’t have brought her back,” he muttered.

“Well, what was he supposed to do? Leave her to bleed in that warehouse? After all she did for him?”

Dean opened his mouth to protest, but a flutter of wings and the clatter of porcelain hitting the ground interrupted him.

“Holy shit!” Meg shouted with a hand over her chest. The mug laid at her feet, completely shattered.

Castiel walked towards her swiftly, stretching a hand to touch her.

“Meg…”

Meg jumped backwards, knocking her chair down in the process. Her eyes were wide with fear and her mouth hanged opened in disbelief. Castiel froze where he was, his hand still reaching out to her. He tilted his head, like he did when he was confused.

“Okay,” Meg muttered after a few seconds of tense silence. “I’m a demon, I get that. What are you supposed to be?”

“I’m… Castiel,” he said, like that was enough presentation. “I’m sorry I didn’t come as soon as they told me you were awake, I was… Meg?”

Meg had shut her eyes tightly, but opened them again when Castiel called her name.

“You can’t be possible,” she muttered, frowning. “Why are you all… golden and white? And why do you have wings?”

The Winchesters exchanged a perplexed look. For some stupid reason, it had never occurred to them Meg could see Castiel’s true form.

***

As the days went by, it became obvious Meg’s amnesia was pretty real. She did things she really didn’t need to, like eating, showering or sleeping. Sam had the impression she was just doing them to imitate them, because she felt like that was what she was supposed to do. She took out books from the library and read them with such intense concentration sometimes she jumped when they called her name or put their hands on her shoulder to tell her something.

“I’m trying to remember,” she would tell Sam. “I’m really… is it normal that it stings every time I walk through a door?”

“Those are the bunkers protections,” Sam explained. “The whole place is demon-proofed.”

“Right. Demon,” Meg nodded. “Keep forgetting about that.”

Sometimes Dean harassed her with questions about the past, just to try and catch her in an inexistent lie:

“Carthage,” he told her, very slowly, like that way Meg could register his words better. “You let loose Hellhounds on us. You killed our friend.”

“I’m sorry,” Meg answered, lowering her eyes. Sam didn’t know if she was apologizing for not remembering or for killing Jo.

Because Meg the Demon was very different from Meg the Amnesiac Demon. In the weeks she’d spent there, she hadn’t threatened to dismember or mangle anybody and she hadn’t once mentioned Crowley or her plans of revenge, like her previous obsession was completely gone. Sometimes traces of her old sass came back, but none of her flirting. For the most part, she either asked a lot of questions or just sat in silence, staring into the void or the words on the book, like she was trying to figure out the answer to a very difficult riddle.

Castiel visited her on daily basis, at unpredictable hours because he was still on the run from Naomi and her angels. He sat by her side on the library, without speaking or touching her until Meg turned her gaze towards him. She always stared at him, unblinking, like she feared he would disappear if she looked away for a fraction of a second. Sam had the impression they had entire conversations without saying a single word out loud.

One morning, he bumped into Castiel leaving what had become Meg’s room. He had an anguished, broken-hearted expression on his face that vanished so fast Sam wondered if he had imagined it.

“She’s sleeping,” he informed Sam.

“Okay,” Sam nodded.

Castiel stayed there instead of disappearing, which meant he wanted to say something else but couldn’t find the words. Sam waited patiently.

“Do you really believe she doesn’t remember anything?” the angel asked in the end. “About her life, about Hell?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said, sincerely. “She seems pretty honest about it.”

Castiel lowered his eyes, lost in thought. Sam waited.

“If she doesn’t remember Hell…” he muttered.

“Do you think she could go back to being the person she was before it?” Sam said, following Castiel’s reasoning.

“If there’s anything left of that person at all,” the angel replied. “Her soul has been damaged beyond repair, but… maybe once again she can feel…”

His voice trailed off, like he didn’t dare finish that thought. Sam remembered the determination on Meg’s face before she went to fight Crowley, her words, almost like a reluctant admission: ‘ _Save your brother… and my unicorn_ ’. He took it that meant the Meg felt something for Castiel even then, despite her nature, maybe even despite herself.

He was about to tell him that when Castiel added:

“But we still don’t know what kind of person that was. Why she ended up in Hell in the first place.”

“You’re saying she could be a dangerous person,” Sam guessed.

Castiel shook his head.

“It’s very complex,” he sighed. “I don’t want Meg to have all those painful memories. But at the same time…”

“You want her back,” Sam understood. “You want the Meg you knew back.”

Castiel didn’t say anything, and Sam decided to keep quiet about what she had told him. He didn’t want to give the angel hopes in case they never recovered that Meg at all.

“Dean and I have a lead about where Kevin could be,” he told Castiel instead. “We should follow it before the trace grows cold, but Dean doesn’t want to leave Meg alone in the bunker…”

“I’ll stay with her,” Castiel said, immediately getting what Sam was asking. “I’ll take care of her. It’s the least I can do.”

“Okay,” Sam nodded.

He half-expected Castiel to fly away then, but the angel opened the door and walked back into Meg’s room.

***

“Oh,” Meg muttered when Castiel informed her Sam and Dean were gone. “When do you think they’ll be back?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel said. “It may be a couple of days.”

Meg put her knees against her chest and hugged them. Castiel had the impression she always wanted to sit like that, but Dean never allowed her to put her feet up in the couch. He stood by her side awkwardly, not entirely sure what to do or say then.

“If you wish me to leave you alone…”

“No,” Meg shook her head. “Actually, that’s the last thing I want.”

Castiel didn’t know what to answer, so he didn’t. He moved to sit by Meg’s side, close enough he could reach to her easily, but far enough that she could back away if she wanted to. Once again, he couldn’t help but to wonder how much he really knew her, what kind of person she was now without…

“I don’t remember it, but I dream about it,” she said, like she had read his thoughts. “Hell, I mean. At least, I think it’s Hell. It’s a place full of fire and screaming. Christ, there’s so much screaming.”

She said the last sentence without flinching, and that was the best indicator that she wasn’t who she’d once been. Most demons couldn’t say God’s name without recoiling or gagging.

“You could… not sleep,” Castiel suggested. “That way you wouldn’t dream about it.”

“That would be so much easier if my mind didn’t go into overdrive every day,” Meg replied, and Castiel thought he heard some of her old sarcasm back. “I try to remember, but it’s just so _exhausting_. I need to rest, but when I close my eyes…”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try so hard to remember,” Castiel said. “Maybe there’s nothing you really need to look back on.”

“No, there’s gotta be something worth it,” she argued. “Something I’d be glad to remember. Like you, for example,” she added, turning her heads towards him and fixing her big brown eyes on him. “I’d like to remember you. How we became friends. Because… we’re friends, right?”

“Yes,” Castiel admitted. “Yes, we’re good friends.”

Meg nodded, like that made sense but she wasn’t entirely sure how.

“It’s not so bad when you’re around,” she confessed. “So could you stay with me tonight?”

Castiel should have said no. He had perceived some fluctuations in Angel Radio, as the Winchesters called him, some signals he should be concerned. They were mostly about the Angel Tablet and himself those days, but their guesses about where he might be were getting awfully specific. He should have run, distract them, set up some red herrings so they wouldn’t find him first.

But Meg was looking at him with such begging expression in her eyes…

“Of course I can stay.”

***

The scars in Meg’s back hadn’t vanished.

Castiel didn’t mean to look, but she took off her shirt the moment they crossed the door to her room, and he looked away as quickly as he could, but he still caught a glimpse of them: long, silver marks on her skin left there by Crowley’s knife. He clenched his fists, furious that he was still out there after what he had done, after what he had tried to do.

“What?” Meg asked, turning around. Castiel remained with his eyes fixed to the wall. “Oh, okay,” she snickered, understanding suddenly. There were some movements and the creaking of the bed when Meg sat on it. “You can look now. I’m decent.”

She was wearing a grey shirt Castiel suspected she had stolen from Sam, because it was long enough to reach her thighs, but let the rest of her legs exposed. Castiel wasn’t sure that was much better, but Meg had always had a different definition of decent than him. Right now, she was smiling in amusement.

“Aren’t angels supposed to be above lustful thoughts and all that?”

“I’m a poor example of an angel,” Castiel replied moving to sit by her side again. “And there have been stories of angels falling in love with humans, even fathering children with them.”

“And with demons?”

Castiel turned to look at her, but Meg’s expression was undecipherable.

“No, I’ve never heard of such thing,” he confessed. “But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

Meg didn’t say a word. She just inched closer to him on the mattress. Almost instinctively, Castiel stretched a wing to cover her with it.

“Why are your wings like this?” she asked, brusquely changing the topic. “The rest of you is so bright, but your wings are black… like they’re scorched.”

“They are. Hellfire,” Castiel explained. “I burned them years ago when I lead the siege to Hell. I was to save Dean Winchester’s soul.”

“You must really care for him.”

“I didn’t, back then,” the angel said. “He was just my mission. But with time, he and Sam have taught me about friendship, love… about what it means finding a cause and serving it.”

Meg didn’t react at her own words repeated back at her. She raised a hand and gently placed it over Castiel’s right wing. When he didn’t move, she started caressing them slowly, tracing the outline of every feather with the tip of her fingers. The angel closed his eyes, shivering under her touch. Without realizing, he started touching her too: he put a hand on her leg, and slowly began finding every single scar in high relief over her skin. It seemed like there wasn’t a part of her that wasn’t covered with them, but they just made her all the more beautiful, a testament of everything she had survived.

“What do you see?” she asked, in a whisper. “When you look at me, what do you see?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “Dean treats me like I’m an abomination, and Sam looks at me like he pities me a little. I guess I want to know what you see. If you see anything at all worth saving in me.”

Castiel lowered his head until his forehead was gently pressed against hers

“Because you saved me, didn’t you?” she asked. “It was you who brought me back… from wherever I was before.”

He opened his eyes.

“I see darkness,” he said. “Swirling shadows all around you; shreds of what used to be your soul.”

“Well, ain’t that great?” Meg muttered, with a scoff. “An angelic poet.”

“It’s beautiful. It’s wild and unruly. Like a gathering storm right beneath your skin.”

“Do you always talk to me like this?”

“Not really,” Castiel admitted with a smile. “You’re not particularly fond of my poetry.”

“I wonder why that is,” Meg joked, crooking an eyebrow. It was so much like her that Castiel couldn’t contain a sigh of relief. He put a hand on her cheek, moving his thumb in slow circles.

“Perhaps,” he whispered. “You’re just not used to being loved.”

Meg glanced up at him, and didn’t say anything, like she was giving him the chance to take it back. He wasn’t going to, so he decided to show her what he meant in a way she could understand.

Her mouth tasted like sulfur, a stingy flavor he remembered quite well. Meg’s breathing hitched right before she parted her lips to let him go deeper. Castiel ran his fingers through her hair, undoing the knots until it was soft and puffy while Meg grabbed handfuls of his feathers with one hand and pressed the other to the back of his head, like she wanted to get him closer still.

It was violent and desperate. Castiel pulled her against his body, like he wanted to melt against her, like he had when he had hoped to bring her back to him, like doing that would make the clouds that shrouded her memory go away.

They really didn’t need to breathe, so they could have stayed like that forever, but Castiel broke away after a moment to analyze Meg’s face. She had her eyes close and her lips swollen from where he’d bitten them, her hair in complete disarray.

“Castiel,” she muttered.

“Yes, Meg?”

“Have we done that before?”

“Yes,” he admitted, with a smile.

“Okay,” Meg moved to sit on his lap and slid his coat down his shoulders. “And have we done _this_ before?”

She needn’t clarify what she meant. Castiel could sense her thoughts same as if she had expressed them out loud.

“We said we would,” he reminded her. “But I don’t think the time is right. Not right now.”

“And when will it be?” Meg asked, glancing up at him.

Castiel wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tight again.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll guess we’ll have to figure it out.”

Meg nodded and hid her face in his neck without another word.

***

Castiel opened his eyes with a jolt. The weight of Meg’s head over his shoulder shifted a little when she felt him move, but her breathing remained calm and deep. He still had an arm around her waist and he moved it up to caress her hair. He had been so concentrated counting her heartbeats and looking at the ever-changing shadows that surrounded her that he had too fallen into a trance akin to sleeping. He thought, with a smile, Meg had never let him cuddle with her like that before…

He chased those thoughts away. She was back. She was there with him, solid and real, and that was all that mattered.

Also mattered: the thing that had brought his attention back. There had been a change in the air. That was the only way to describe it. They were no longer alone in the bunker. Perhaps Dean and Sam had returned before he expected them too.

In retrospective, he should have been more careful. He should have stopped to try and get a better sense of the presence; he should have considered he was still being hunted. But he had been so content not a second before that he let his guard down. It didn’t even cross his mind as he stepped outside the room.

That was a mistake.

An iron grip closed on his wrists, and the next thing he knew, he was being thrown to the floor and kicked in the ribs. He never even had a chance to react, and when he tried to, he found he was powerless. The handcuffs around his wrists were covered in Enochian symbols meant to subdue him.

Two of his brothers were standing atop of him, glaring at him with a mixture of anger and disgust.

“Inias,” Castiel called them. “Malachi.”

Malachi kicked him in the face.

“Is there a sacrilege you won’t commit?!” he shouted at him while Castiel’s vision blurred. “First you steal the Angel Tablet, and now we find you in bed with that, that…?”

“Take him to Naomi, brother,” Inias replied. “I will get rid of the demon.”

“No!” Castiel screamed, and that earned him another kick, this one directly to the mouth. He tasted blood and he barely had time to spit it out before Malachi grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and forced him to his feet. Castiel struggled, but he was bound, he couldn’t…

Inias opened the door and was immediately met with Castiel’s blade going up his chin. His entire body shook with white light as the life escaped him and he collapsed on the floor. Meg stepped over his body like it was nothing but a mild annoyance and charged towards Malachi.

The other angel had time to let go of Castiel and take out his blade, but he could only stop a couple of Meg’s attacks before she slit his throat with a flick of her wrist. Blood splattered on the walls before the scorching marks of Malachi’s wings stained them too.

“You’re losing your edge, Clarence,” Meg said, before turning to him and using the blade to slash through the marks in the steel. Afterwards, it was easy for Castiel to break them. “Are you okay?” she asked him, as she helped him stand up.

“Yes,” Castiel muttered, spitting a ball of blood and saliva on the floor. “I… we need to get out of here. More will be coming. I need to make sure the Tablet is safe.”

“Sure, but…” Meg looked at the two dead angels in the hallway. “Aren’t Sam and Dean going to get mad at us for just leaving this mess here?”

“I’ll call them to warn them,” Castiel said. “Get your clothes.”

Meg turned around to return to her room when suddenly it hit him:

“You called me Clarence.”

Meg froze right where she was.

“Did I?” she asked, without turning to look at him. “It must have been a lapse.”

Castiel kept staring at the back of her head. She still had his bloody blade clutched in her hand.

“I’m coming with you, Castiel,” she said, firmly. “So you don’t you dare fly away without me.”

Castiel had no doubt in his mind she would come after him, as relentlessly as Naomi. He didn’t have the energy to run away from them both. And besides… he wanted to hear what she had to say.

“Very well,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

***

“It was true. I didn’t remember anything at first.”

“And later?”

“It started coming back. Bits and pieces. I still don’t have the complete picture, though.”

If the Biggerson’s waitress found their conversation strange, she showed no signs of it as she poured coffee in both their cups and walked away to the next table.

“I remember the pizza man,” Meg added, with a shrug. “That’s a good one.”

Castiel stared at Meg. She seemed unrepentant for having lied to him, for having pretended she didn’t remember anything about their relationship.

“Why?”

“I told you. I wanted to know what you saw. Why you went through the trouble of bringing me back.”

“And did you get your answer?”

“Oh, don’t look so bitter about it,” she huffed, even though Castiel thought he was doing a good job at hiding his bitterness. “I’m a demon, remember? When we want something, we lie. Besides, playing helpless, amnesiac Meg was the best way to get Sam and Dean to agree to let me stay in the bunker.”

“You didn’t have to lie to me,” Castiel snapped, before turning his attention to his pocket watch. The buzzing in his ears was getting louder. They couldn’t stay there much longer.

“Fair enough,” Meg accepted and stretched a hand to put it on top of his. “So here’s a little bit of truth for you: I’m not leaving you. Wherever you’re going, I’m going too.”

“Why?”

“Well, you just seem to get into all sorts of troubles when I take my eyes off of you for two whole seconds.”

That sounded so much like the same old Meg that Castiel had to smile.

“Very well,” he said. “Hold on tight.”

***

The waitress turned around to ask the couple in the corner if they wanted something besides coffee. But all she found was an empty table and two abandoned cups.


End file.
